Draft Report on the EU Roadmap Against Homophobia and Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (2013/2183 INI)

Dear Members of the European Parliament: We take this opportunity to provide input on the Draft Report on the EU Roadmap Against Homophobia and Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, commonly known as the Lunacek Report. We oppose the Report as well as the Motion for a European Parliament Resolution requesting the adoption of the Report. We justify our position as follows.

We have carefully reviewed the Report and find it woefully lacking in persuasiveness. Essentially, I refer to its methodology and the arguments listed in the Report’s Explanatory Statement. First, under international law there is no recognized right to nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Thus, we oppose any attempts to use the Report or the European Parliament as a launching pad for the recognition in international law of a right to nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Nor does international law recognize a distinct human category entitled to special protection or nondiscrimination based on this criteria. (…)

We further analyzed the results of the May 17, 2013 LGBT Survey published by the FRA. If anything, the Survey conveys the very opposite conclusion of what the Lunacek Report states: by and large, sexual minorities are not the object of discrimination or violence in the European Union. The Lunacek Report’s Explanatory Statement devotes a paragraph to the Survey’s statistical findings. However, statistics do not necessarily reflect causation. The Lunacek Report fails to acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of the acts of violence directed against sexual minorities are carried out by sexual minorities themselves, not by others. In fact, the vast majority of studies devoted to violence against homosexuals conclude, without fail, that the homosexual lifestyle is prone to violence by its very nature. Domestic violence among homosexual couples is significantly higher than in traditional domestic relations. We realize this is an unsettling argument to make against the Lunacek Report, but it must, nevertheless, be made. It restates reality.

In this regard, we reference a September 2013 Report from the Urban Institute in the United States which concluded that gay youths are 148% more likely to be physically abused in relationships by people they are dating than their heterosexual counterparts. The Report anonymously surveyed 5,647 youths from 10 schools in New York State, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Approximately six percent of the respondents identified themselves as homosexual, bisexual, questioning, or other sexual identities aside from heterosexual or transgender. 43 percent of the respondents reported having been victims of physical dating violence, compared to 29 percent among heterosexual youth. 59 percent reported emotional abuse, compared to 46 percent of heterosexual youth. 37 percent reported digital abuse and harassment, compared to 26 percent of heterosexual youth, and 23 percent reported sexual coercion, compared to 12 percent of heterosexual youth. Transgendered students fared even worse. Of the transgendered students surveyed, 89 percent reported physical dating violence; 61 percent said they were sexually coerced; 59 percent had been emotionally victimized; and 56 percent reported digital abuse and harassment. [Reference: Meredith Dank, et al., Dating Violence Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth, In Press: Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Urban Institute, Justice Policy Center, http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/412892-Dating-Violence-Experiences-of-Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-and-Transgender-Youth.pdf] (…)

We further advise against the adoption of the Report because it contributes to the institutionalizing of the sexual revolution. The sexual revolution we are currently witnessing is not different from prior revolutions. It seeks to demolish the old regime and impose a new one. We do not believe it is the proper role and competence of the European Parliament to institutionalize in the European Union a sexual revolution. In vogue for the last several decades, the sexual revolution has, with the aid of permissive states and international organizations and governments, deconstructed the very moral foundations of European civilization, European values, and Europe’s social institutions.

No facet of societal existence has been left untouched by the sexual revolution. The impact has been devastating everywhere. The fundamental rights of citizens have had to yield to the newer and more radical agenda of sexual minorities. The family as a social institution has been on the decline. Cohabitation is largely displacing and replacing the natural family and marriage, and out-of-wedlock child birth is on the upswing. Almost half of the European Union’s children are born to single young women. The sexual revolution has bred irresponsibility, the abandonment of prudence, risky behaviors, and the unweaving of societal cohesion. The social costs imposed by the sexual revolution have skyrocketed and have strained public spending. Weak families mean more public spending to cope with the social costs of nontraditional forms of association and cohabitation. We recommend, in this regard, a recent piece published in the New YorkTimes on January 25, 20014 by the prestigious editorialist Ross Douthat More Imperfect Unions [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/douthat-more-imperfect-unions.html?_r=0] (…)

The Lunacek Report promotes a selfish vision. It emphasizes nondiscrimination for an artificially constructed social group to the detriment of the fundamental rights of the vast majority of the European Union’s citizens. It elevates nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation to a privileged status. In our view, this is unacceptable.

Nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation is a relatively recent construct. However, in countries around the world where it has been implemented the consequences for the rights of the vast majority of citizens have been identical. Long standing fundamental rights and liberties have been displaced to accommodate the new wave of artificially constructed rights to nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation. In Canada it has become a crime to speak out against homosexuality. Civil servants have been fined or dismissed from work for failing to comply with government imposed rules and regulations related to sexual minorities. Ministers of the Gospel have been fined or have had their media programs blocked by the government for having preached against sexual sin. In Sweden pastors have been arrested for having done the same. In the UK pastors have also been arrested for quoting Bible verses which speak against sexual sin. In the United States people have lost their jobs for speaking against homosexuality, or have had their businesses sued or closed down because of their insistence on the Biblical teachings on sexuality. In these and other countries freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, and free speech have been severely restricted to impose nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation. (…)

Finally, the Lunacek Report institutionalizes an artificial social category. Sexual orientation and gender identity are social constructs defined by individual choices and social indoctrination. In recent decades homosexuality has become somewhat of a fad. Evolutionary biology has long demonstrated that homosexuality cannot be explained biologically. It is not an innate aspect of human expression, but a choice with mostly grave and life lasting consequences. Homosexuality and sexual orientation become entrenched in an individual’s brain and psyche to various degrees over time. They are affected and determined by choices regarding fantasy life, responses to social and environmental factors in childhood and adolescence, seduction of children by adults, the degree to which one acts on impulses, and the degree of self-motivation to change. We base this averment on, among others, the conclusions of Edward Stein, a professor of law and philosophy and the author of The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory, and Ethics of Sexual Orientation [New York: Oxford University Press, 1999] His main thesis for the etiology of homosexuality is choice, a personal choice, often incremental or indirect, but based on choice nevertheless. Homosexual attractions reflect a desire for a form of behavior that is structurally deviant from the innate norm. They are impulse-related compulsions, not natural affections. Same-sex unions are predominantly based on sexual desire. Such desire alone cannot form the basis of legitimate and society sanctioned unions. As Alexander Pruss, Professor of Philosophy at Baylor University in Texas recently stated: “(W)e cannot (…) simply assume that people are always right about what they desire sexually.” [Alexander Pruss, One Body: An Essay in Christian Sexual Ethics, p. 54, University of Notre Dame Press, 2013] (…)

Sexual confusion is no laughing matter. To take a recent example, the degree of sexual confusion on American campuses is alarming. Though a minority among the young might consider this “cool,” no reasonable person could agree that sexual confusion is desirable. Sexual confusion and disorientation is not a “cool” thing, but something to be of concern to every governing body, including the European Parliament. On January 9, 2013 the New York Times published a long narrative on the sexual confusion which pervades America’s campuses. Its title is suggestive: Generation LGBTQIA, and it is a must read for every person that intends to vote on the Lunacek Report. [The article can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/fashion/generation-lgbtqia.html?pagewanted=all]